Providing help desk functionality is one of the most critical parts of a call center. Call center representatives may provide help to both customers as well as other representatives. In particular, many call centers have a specialized help desk group for calls routed from online representatives when escalation, questions, or feedback arise.
The primary communication channel in call centers today is the telephone. A call routing system takes incoming calls from where they are assigned to an available call center representative (or a help desk representative). Representatives can change the status of their availability by pressing a button on their desk, connected to the phone, to let the call routing system know if they are online, unavailable, or offline. Other communication channels used in call centers are email and fax which, though cheaper, do not provide real-time communication and are thus less frequently used.
Though the telephone provides a reliable and real-time communication channel, it has many drawbacks. For example, using a telephone, a representative can only handle one customer at a time. Even if the representative handles multiple customers using multiple lines, the representative has to put the other customers on hold, which makes the customers dissatisfied. Moreover, after handling a call, representatives must usually document the assistance that they provided and the action they took. This manual information entry increases hold time and potential errors.
Furthermore, it is difficult to control features and access for a representative that uses a telephone. Changes cannot be done on the fly, as they usually need to be done on a phone switch needing a technician to physically go to the switch and do the changes. Hence, changes incur a heavy cost and latency. Although calls may be recorded for quality assurance and future reference, it is difficult to extract information out of these recorded calls. Voice recognition and extraction technology is still in its nascent stages. As a result, a meaningful knowledge base that can be used later cannot be created with the current telephone systems. Also, using the telephone distracts call center representatives because they primarily use a PC while working. In addition, telephones do not provide an easy way to broadcast messages to multiple people quickly.
Thus, there is a need for improved systems and methods for providing a messaging service. For instance, there is a need for a fully configurable, plug and play type of messaging system that has a message routing engine at its core. The system may be fully secure, as valuable customer information will often be exchanged over the network. The system may provide an alternative channel for providing real-time messaging and collaboration for call center operations, thus reducing cost and increasing effectiveness.